Sometime earlier this week, I was in some sort of stupid daze where I was happy about things. It must have been Easter and Jesus rising and the wonderment of reincarnation magic smiling upon my heart.

Fuck Easter, by the way.

It's Wednesday now, so this is the shit you get. An ornery dude in his early 30s blogging on a pretty shitty website since everyone stopped writing on it, complaining about a bunch of shit that you, at best, have a cursory interest in because sports.

Let's get on with it.

I fucking hate Major League Baseball.

Actually, that's not fair. I like the sport. I enjoy watching with friends. I fucking hate that baseball has an interminably long season that people weirdly care about during the first few weeks - enough to rag on a guy for HANGING OUT WITH HIS BABY AND WIFE WHO JUST BIRTHED HIM/HER/IT - and then they tell you it's because they like summer and being outside and drinking and all, but then they watch at a bar and make you turn off playoff hockey and that sort of defeats their argument about the joy of summer. Have a fucking barbecue. The MLB season's length is arguably one of the stupidest things in sports, right next to our weird treatment of athletes who used performance enhancing drugs in an era when everyone used them, thereby giving them essentially no competitive advantage. No big surprise that Bud Selig and his Merry Band of Miscreants manage to get so much wrong.

Listen ... OF COURSE I'd like baseball more if I followed a team that was good, but the Mets are not so let's move past that. In the midst of my hate for the team I love, it becomes abundantly clear that the league could cut 50 games off the schedule and still end up with basically the same product except without TV and ad revenue and I suppose that those things are what it's all about. Still defending it?

I'm going to a baseball game this Friday and it's so bad that I am compelled to go to a two hour open bar before the game so I can be sure to (a) not remember a fucking thing about the endless nine innings I observe and/or (2) get kicked out for calling a security guard a fat taint and/or (iii.) take a nap sometime between the fourth and seventh innings. Baseball is fun because of getting drunk, being an asshole with your friends, and naps. That's what we're working with here.

Go Mets.

I fucking hate the NHL.

This is another sport I love that is ruined by the corporate fuckup of league decisions and the absolute assbags who work there. You know, in hindsight it should have been a warning sign that Pat Lafontaine worked for the NHL since it is pretty apparent that the league is routinely run in a way that can at best be described as "lacking clearly defined standards which tend to alter the competitive and fairness aspects of the sport" and can at worst be described as "OH DEAR LORD YOU DICKS ARE AWFUL IDIOTS AND RUIN EVERYTHING FUCK OFF AND DIE".

It's the playoffs now. And while NHL HQ's marketing blitz likes to tell us that things get all awesome and shit "Because it's the Cup" and "History will be made," it's becoming crystal clear that the real theme of the playoffs has become "Hey you! Yeah you! Feel free to be as violent as you want! We'll probably let it slide if you're important to your team!!" Shit, we don't even really get fights in the playoffs, but that hasn't stopped players from committing those acts that pose markedly high risks of harm, and it certainly hasn't stopped the NHL from allowing many of those acts to go unpunished, particularly when those committing the acts are stars, or a member of the Boston Bruins... those assholes get away with all sorts of shit always. This is all justified under the umbrella of "not wanting to stifle the natural competition of the tournament" or some such nonsense. Because, of course, risking injures that might injure a player or ruin his ability to use his brain is nothing in comparison to losing the assailant to a suspension for any drastic period of time.

The NHL sucks at understanding the simple concepts of justice in it's system of player discipline. The people employed by the league are seemingly more likely to make a decision regarding player discipline based on gut instinct rather than based on a logical assessment of conduct and the assessment of a penalty that serves as an effective deterrent. Worst of all, making the situation endlessly confusing for fans and players alike, the NHL truly lacks any sense of applying even-handed player discipline as it leaves some egregious acts unpunished and others receiving unquestioned bans. Player reputations play too strong a role in the determination of punishments for truly egregious acts, leaving Zdeno Chara unscathed for ball tapping an opponent and Brent Seabrook's suspension lasting only three games, while the bad guys of the league - the guys who are barely missed by their teams or its fans - are treated as "examples." It's no fucking wonder that Blues fans make light of Backes' injury when the NHL can't be bothered to find a suspension that meaningfully punished Seabrook for causing Backes' brain to get violently thrown about in his skull. Besides, I'm sure Seabrook will really learn his lesson when Matt Cooke is suspended for the rest of the playoffs.

Fuck the NHL and it's enormous clown shoes.

The Bills are happenin' now.

I fucking hate Donald Trump.

FUCK. I really don't know what got over me earlier this week when I had a momentary lapse into "you know what? Trump might not be that bad! At least he would keep the Bills in Buffalo!" Fuck me, and fuck Trump.

Yes, his politics are abhorrent to me, but more to the point the way he goes about his politics are the most truly fucking bothersome thing about this man. He doesn't just hate President Obama - he bandies about that hatred as a badge of honor and makes a concerted effort to find the most absurd criticisms upon which to latch. President Obama isn't American and his Presidency is unconstitutional? Check. President Obama walks in an un-Presidential manner? Check. This asshole picks on everybody, all the while courting our fan base - fans based out of the City of Good fucking Neighbors - in his looming bid to purchase our football team. Just the other day, he called Arianna Huffington ugly - really, guy, you are fucking hideous - and then retweeted the comment from a fan about her not having a green card.

GOOD ONE, SIR. YOU REALLY SHOWED HER.

This is the dude trying to buy our football team. Our "I don't care who he is and whether he's a good guy as long as the Bills stay and win a Super Bowl" refrain is all well and good. I, too, do not really care so long as both of those hypothetical, really impossible to comprehend things happen. But for fuck's sake, is this the guy who is likely to get us there? Does the universe truly reward us in such a roundabout way, still leaving a terrible taste in our mouth and, actually pining for the days of Ralph "Odious Taint" Wilson? This - a purchase by Donald Trump, the lovable douchebag who has invaded our social consciousness with a stunning brand of buffoonery masked as corporate acumen - is what we've been dreaming for.

Fuck that. We should be able to do better, and if not, let's at least not pretend to be happy about it.

I fucking hate Jose Mourinho.

I don't really have anything more to add except that he can blow me. Fuck that guy.

And in closing...

I fucking hate fat people who fail to realize their girth and mistake a small subway seat between two people for a square footage of area that can fit their fat ass, the comfort and personal space of their fellow riders be damned all to fucking hell (and yes, that includes me which is why I fucking stand most commutes like a gentlemen). I fucking hate the assholes who ride the commuter trains back into New Jersey with luggage and/or stroller and/or kids of any age while the rest of us are just trying to go about our normal lives. I fucking hate all the tourists that jam up my subway station between 5pm and 7pm every evening, christ the metrocard swiper is not that fucking complicated fuck. I fucking hate Fred Wilpon and Robert Kraft and Nancy Grace and Piers Morgan and Ann Coulter and creationists and birthers and the failure of law enforcement to properly investigate Jameis Winston allegedly raping someone and Episcopalians who left after Gene Robinson was elected and everything on the WB and that FiOS can't fucking fix by HD NBC Sports so I have to watch standard definition like a chump and that David Moyes was sacked and Vincent Tan and Jerry Jones and Rex Ryan and that Michael Vick lives while those dogs remain dead and every fan at MetLife Stadium and my bitch tits and that Nassau Coliseum will no longer be a place upon which I can urinate and that my teams are shit except for Liverpool they're fucking boss and Yankee fans.

If I'm being honest, my feelings on the Subway Series typically fall on the "hate it" side of the fence. A twice annual reminder of why my team isn't as good as their team is usually not my idea of fun, and even those seasons where the Mets have come out victorious against their cross-town rivals, it's usually set against the overaching reality that the Yankees have a shot at playoffs and beyond, and the Mets just don't. Like in 2008, when the Mets won the season series 4-2, including a sweep at Yankee Stadium...and the Mets were eliminated from wild card contention on the last day of the season by the Marlins. Again. Or 2004, when they swept at Shea and won the series, only to go 71-91 that year.

Living in New York, the Mets are the team you root for if you don't really mind a dark cloud over your head. They're who you root for if sports don't have to be easy for you, if you want to feel a sense of fulfillment by earning success through years of despair. That is, if you think your being a fan has anything to do with anything, which - as it happens - I narcissistically do. Being a Met fan means that, even when you win, you gotta be ready to hear it from the Yankee fans in the room when they remind you of their many titles and how Jeter is God and how they don't even like A-Rod, as if that lends them more credibility (it does).

This season smells a little different, though. The teams step up the Subway Series in remarkably similar circumstances - the Yankees in third place in the AL East, a half game back of the surprising Orioles; the Mets in third, back a game and a half from the surprising Nationals. They each also sit in divisions with powerhouse teams in last place, further complicating their own prospects at an eventual postseason berth with the chance that the Red Sox and Phillies could suddenly remember how to play baseball again. And, lest I forget, they each have teams owned by rich men who made money by swindling middle-class investors.What's that? Only the Mets are owned by dirty crooks? Oh. Bummer./cries in corner over Wilpon crimes /considers argument that all sports team owners are crooks who swindle the middle-class/cries moreDespite the similarities of circumstances, the Yankees and Mets of 2012 are still very different teams. The Yankees are squeaking by despite fielding a team of proven winners and more than their fair share of perennial All Stars, while the Mets are exceeding expectations with a team of nobodies and top guys on the DL, leaving a roster seemingly held together with duct tape, naive ambition and the magical, high-pitched tone of Terry Collins' voice. Add in a guy coming off the franchise's first no-hitter, and suddenly this series doesn't just seem like an opportunity to show up the big brother club from the Bronx, but a chance for the Mets to establish themselves - in the context of a very strong season - as the NYC team to watch this summer.No matter what happens this weekend, I'm optimistic about the Mets this season, insofar as I had previously expected to give up on them in May and now actually think there will be meaningful games come August and September. But, if I have to walk into work on Monday to find a gaggle of cocky Yankee fans gloating about beating up on the Mets this weekend, things may get violent. You may disagree, but I don't think I'd do well in Manhattan Central Booking or Rikers Island ... so, if only for that, Let's Go Mets!

I'm the cute one on the left.

Maybe in the end, it won't matter much - as most Inter-League play most certainly does not - since the Yankee fans will still have those rings to point to with a disgusting level of arrogance and hair grease, and since the Yankees themselves will likely remain the darling of the NYC sports world until the Mets make an actual run at World Series again (and that, despite my optimism, is a long way off). But, for these few days, just maybe the Amazins can put together some solid wins and shut the knuckle-dragging front-runners up for a little while. In a City that seems to live and breathe baseball for the summer months, and is overflowing with Yankee fans falling over each other to pat themselves on the back for the good sense at following one the most successful teams in all of sports, that's certainly a nice thought.

This garbage is just WAY too predictable at this point. Feeling feisty after game 1 of the Subway Series, I posted this. I talked a little shit about Jeter. I talked a lot of shit about Yankee fans. And, while I added the requisite amount of caveats, I got cocky and self-righteous about my Mets and their prospects for the rest of the weekend.

Oh Goddammit. The Mets: Still Experts at Pooping the BedJeter: Still Expert at Making Us His Bitch

For any Mets fans out there - and if you read this sorry excuse for a blog and our whining drivel about our shitty sports teams, I assume there's a decent chance you are - my apologies. The fact is that the Mets had an opportunity to shut the door on the series today by building on their 3-1 lead, but the 8 run 7th inning by the Bombers changed that right quick and in the end the Mets simply got worked. I really should have known better, and clearly my overzealous support and optimism had a big part in the Mets' losses last night and this afternoon. This is by no means the first time my attitude has caused a team of mine to lose, so I really feel quite ridiculous at my inability to temper my emotions. My bad folks. My bad.

Sadly, I can't promise that it won't happen again.

That said, to any Yankee fans out there - congrats you giant DBs. There's a billion reasons why it's stupid for you smug sons of bitches to gloat about this win (and boy did you on Twitter today), but I'll give you some slack since I have no choice but to assume that you're all still drunk from the game and your celebrations at beating a team full of reserves. If I were in your position, I'd be drunk too. And then I'd stab myself in the leg out of principle. And I'd like it.

As for me, this Mets Subway series loss - putting them back to two games below .500 while reviving serious questions about whether they can stay afloat long enough to get at least marginally healthy - has me feeling like my old self: depressed and in need of some shots of Crown and/or Jame-o to get me out of this funk. Toss in losses by Liverpool - to close their season - and FC Buffalo - to open theirs , and I'm left finding singular solace in women's soccer and the dominating performance by Marta and the WNY Flash this evening. And even though I don't have much of a problem defending my decision to watch and cheer for the 2010 FIFA Player of the Year playing for a WNY team, especially after all my other teams had disappointing outcomes this weekend, given the relatively small scale of the WPS and the apparent meaninglessness of the Flash win compared to a Subway Series loss, I'm all too conscious that this has been a pathetic little weekend for my teams.

Luckily for the Rebels, these smug f*ckers seriously underestimated those little Ewoks from Queens

The Barrister

As part of my process of self-introduction to our beloved DGWU readers, I think its necessary to say that I'm a Yankee hater. Much of the time, I'm forced to cloak my hate for the benefit of my Yankee fan father-in-law and my wife who generously supports any team followed by anyone in our family. It's not difficult to give many life-long Yankee fans a pass, since I can't very well hate on those whose fandom was set early on in their childhood. Yet, as successful as the team is, and as much as they've historically poached the cream of the MLB talent pool, it's hard for me to think anything good about the franchise. I always hated Yankee fans in Buffalo as I grew up, as I had the irking suspicion that my peers were taking the easy way out by choosing a front-runner that could help them soothe the pain of our hometown sports failures. My family (by way of my parents growing up in New England) cheered for the lowly, cursed Red Sox as I grew up - which, predicably enough, was less appealing to me after celebrating the 2004 championship with my parents while I was living at home that fall. Making a switch to the Mets - which wasn't realy a switch, since I could honestly give a crap about major league ball until I caught a live game at Shea in '05 - seemed like a logial step because those roots of support for the BoSox certainly engrained a certain level of loathing for the Yankees on any number of levels. Living in New York, I've learned a lot of new reasons to hate on the Bombers, not the least of which is my general feelings about certain elements of their fan base. Indeed, now that the Sox are winning on the regular, their fanbase has been displaying some of those same annoying tendencies, which makes me fall all the more comfortable with distancing myself from the boys from Fenway.

I mention all of this backstory because yesterday over lunch at work, I had a pretty long conversation with a coworker who was adamant that the Yankees would sweep the Subway Series, that the Mets are the embarassment of the league, and that shouldn't I just get over the Mets and start following a winner? The guy, who I generally like quite a bit, came off as a complete dumbass and had it been a lunch over a couple beers, I probably would have gotten a lot more heated than I ended up being. He was completely oblivious to problems within their lineup, to the fact that Jeter is on his way down in production and that the pitching isn't as good as everyone keeps saying it is. In my preview post yesterday, I purporsefully chose not to bring up this infuriating conversation, mostly because I had a healthy fear that the Mets might actually get swept, and since this coworker has made a point to check in on this blog every once in a while, I didn't want to embarass myself too badly.But, it's Saturday now, Ithe "lowly" Mets won 2-1, and I'm happy gloating a little bit. In other words, suck it Yankees and your knuckle-dragging fans. You just got beat by a bunch of AAA players and a bullpen of guys who, at the beginning of the season, were pegged as the worst in the league.If you didn't watch (and I confess that I took breaks to watch more wife-friendly TV), The game itself was great. Dickey pitched a gem, giving up only 4 hits ,including 1 HR by Texeira, over 6 innings. A solid effort for him - especially given his 5 1/3 inning, 11 hit, 6 run performance against the Astros in his previous outing. Consecutive full innings by O'Connor, Isringhausen and K-Rod kept the Yankees hitless through the 7th, 8th and 9th. Add in a key 5th inning A-Rod grounder up the middle stopped by Jose Reyes, and the Mets defense really came through in a big way.

This defensive effort set the stage for the Mets offense to do just enough to win, and they did - in the form of Daniel Murphy taking advantage of the short porch in right field by hitting the ultimate game-winning homer to put the score at 2-1. Murphy, who had been a favorite of mine when he was up with the Mets a couple years back, has taken advantage of the recent opportunity to start and, yesterday, to bat 2nd in the order. Mike Vaccaro of the Post had a really great article about Murph today and it really makes me happy to see the guy coming back around after his recent struggles - much like the team itself.Putting all this positivity aside - as it is so easy to do given my utlimate confidence that the Mets are actually not all that good of a team - I know those Yankees are going to come out firing tonight. The City press was pretty hard on the Bombers today, and with good reason. Not that it stopped the guy in front of me at Dunkin Donuts this morning from spouting off about how great the Yanks are and how much the Mets suck. To him, and many others, the Yankees' predominance in the world of New York baseball is a matter of black and white, and a struggling and aging team won't convince them otherwise. So, even though these clowns aren't about to shut up anytime soon, boy is it fun to watch the Mets and its lineup of young guns give it a try.Follow me on Twitter! @theycallmedubsAnd the DGWU Crew generally: @DGWUSports

The BarristerThe Subway Series is always a weird and wonderful time in New York. A buzz fills the air - though, today that might just be the hope that The Rapture could leave us behind and a little better off - and fans express their allegiances with hats, jerseys, t-shirts, cursing arguments in the street. It's great. But, it goes without saying that the level of buzz has been a little muted in the past few years, what with the Yankees being so awesome generally and the Mets being so pathetic generally. As a Mets fan, I'm all too aware of this trend. But, for this first meeting between the two teams from the Big Apple, the posturing is different. The Mets, while certainly not a good team, are making a little bit of a run of it lately. Injury-plagued like always, this team is doing a lot with a little so far this season. When D. Wright went out with a diagnosed stress fracture in his back, some fans may have lost what little hope was left, but the week since has shown some fight in this team that you can't help but be impressed at. Typical Buffalo rationale for following a garbage squad, I know. Don't like it? Kill yourself.

Seriously, though, the Mets started off SUPER rocky this year, winning their first seies against the Marlins, but then losing consecutive series against the Philles (no surprise), Nationals (dammit), Rockies (SWEPT..those were a couple rough days for me), Braves and Astros. Holy shit that's depressing to go through. The Mets were 6-13 heading into a late April series against the D-Bags, I mean, Backs, which resulted in a 3-0 series win. In hidsight, that sweep of Arizona was a big turning point, as the Mets proceeded take series against the Nationals (twice), Dodgers, Astros and Rockies since, with series losses only to the Phillies (2-1) and Giants (2-1), as well as a single game series loss to the Marlins on May 16th. Suddenly, with TWO (two!) pitchers out for the year, a franchise third baseman out for at least a month (and probably longer), a future frachise first baseman on the DL as well, an ace still on the mend from off-season surgery and an owner who is a complete asshat, the Mets are 21-22 and a mere 5 games back of Philly, and - by my count - only 3.5 games back of the wildcard, Sure, WAYYYY too early for talk like that, but it's just to prove my point. The Mets may be awful, but they also may NOT be. A lot of baseball left and shit if I know how these apparent scrubs are going to be positioned when the heat and humidity of August starts to kick into full gear in Flushing. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm not alone in feeling that this Subway Series may not be the mismatch that it probably should be and that I thought it was destined to be as of three weeks ago. Don't get me wrong, though, The Yankees roster is absurdly stacked from the top down, and the Mets don't get the benefit of forcing the Yanks' AL pitchers to bat since this game is in the Bronx. I'm not going to pretend that the Yankees should lose this series, or even a game of this series, with the squad that they've purchased. But, facts are facts, and the Bombers aren't playing all that great ball lately. They sit only 2.5 games above the Mets in terms of standings, and - despite their three game winning streak coming into tonight's game (two of which were against the Orioles, though, and don't count) - they've had a rough go of it this month with recent series losses to the Sox (SWEEP!! Hooray Sox!), the Tigers and Royals. Sure, they still took out the Rangers in the midst of all that, but those boys from fact Texas are simply in a slow, downward spiral after their hot 6-0 start. As for the Yankees, the story is that team just isn't hitting well. Their leading player (at least amongst their usual starters) in terms of average is Robinson Cano, and he's sitting at .288. Jeter and A-Rod are at .257 and .261, respectively, Not really what we've come to expect. Curtis Granderson is playing alright - he's second in AL with 14 HRs and 3rd in AL with 32 RBIs - but his .270 average is still below where you want all of these guys on the supposedly deadly Yankees batting order. In fact, with Texeira as the best Yank in terms of OBP, and with him sitting at 15th in the AL, and A-Rod coming in at 33rd, there should be more than a little concern amongst Bomber fans.

A-Rod: Resident Douche and Underperformer

Given the state of things, and despite the instincts of the reasonable parts of my brain, Mets fans have to be excited for this series. With all the injuries (seriously, though, they've needed new conditioning coaches for YEARS now) and typical ineptitude with Los Mets, nothing would make me happier than to stick it to the Yankees this weekend and prove that they're not even fit to beat a team of AAA call-ups from Buffalo (woot!). Starters, according to MLB.com, are projected to be RA Dickey (1-5, ERA of 5.08) and Freddy Garcia (2-3, ERA of 3.22). With the recent troubles at the plate for the Yankees, I expect Dickey's knuckler to create some problems, and am hopeful for a series-opening win. Game Prediction: Mets 6, Yankees 2. Series Prediction: Mets take two - one tonight plus a big win for Big Pelf in Sunday's rubber match.Follow me on Twitter! @theycallmedubsAnd for the DGWU Crew, @DGWUSports